It is all obvious or trivial except…

Hunter gatherer child rearing

I find myself thinking a lot about the New Guinea people with whom I have been working for the last 49 years, and about the comments of Westerners who have lived for years in hunter-gatherer societies and watched children grow up there. Other Westerners and I are struck by the emotional security, self-­confidence, curiosity, and autonomy of members of small-scale societies, not only as adults but already as children. We see that people in small-scale societies spend far more time talking to each other than we do, and they spend no time at all on passive entertainment supplied by outsiders, such as television, videogames, and books. We are struck by the precocious development of social skills in their children. These are qualities that most of us admire, and would like to see in our own children, but we discourage development of those qualities by ranking and grading our children and constantly ­telling them what to do. The adolescent identity crises that plague American teenagers aren’t an issue for hunter-gatherer children. The Westerners who have lived with hunter-gatherers and other small-scale societies speculate that these admirable qualities develop because of the way in which their children are brought up: namely, with constant security and stimulation, as a result of the long nursing period, sleeping near parents for ­several years, far more social models available to children through ­allo-parenting, far more social stimulation through constant physical contact and proximity of caretakers, instant caretaker responses to a child’s crying, and the minimal amount of physical punishment.

Maybe this is the way to raise children if you want a society that hasn\’t even invented agriculture yet.

Oh, can’t fault the article at all. We should start to implement the hunter gathers lifestyle immediately. For Londoners, s’pose that means deporting everyone with antecedents from north of Enfield say. Unless we treat them as a food resource, of course.

As far as I can see the author earns his living as an anthropologist, ie a kind of scientist.
A physicist who said that protons are great but electrons are terrible wouldn’t get any respect.
Same with an anthropologist who makes value judgements about the societies he studies.

Bart – “As far as I can see the author earns his living as an anthropologist, ie a kind of scientist.”

Ha! Not met a lot of anthropologists have you? If you do, and you ask one the time, double check.

“A physicist who said that protons are great but electrons are terrible wouldn’t get any respect.”

How about one who say that Iodine 127 was fine but that Iodine 131 was bad?

“Same with an anthropologist who makes value judgements about the societies he studies.”

You are probably right but should you be? There is Colin Turnbull’s infamous Mountain People which I would not recommend to anyone without a strong stomach. But perhaps he shouldn’t get any respect. The book clearly upset a lot of people in the profession. But I did like Roger Edgerton’s Sick Societies. How is anyone supposed to react to, say, FGM? Or slavery? Or rape as a punishment?

Sort of off topic but doncha think making all socially inadequate teenagers drop MDMA and go to a whorehouse once a week do more to stop these crazy massacres than gun control? These kids clearly need to get laid

So are we all agreed that large-scale cultures cannot be altered because they are, well . . . superior?

That very superiority may explain why so many children raised in large-scale, Western cultures belittle or even cause physical harm to one another and their own family, have a hard time learning to deal with different ideas and ways of living, and grow to insecure adulthood while continuing to refine these traits learned in childhood.

John, firstly, aren’t you adopting an absurdly linear view for comparing cultures? Cultures are massively complex things, surely it’s entirely possible to believe that culture A is superior to cultures B, C, D and E in some aspects, culture B is superior to A, C, D and E in others, culture C is superior to A, B, D and E in others and etc.

Secondly, you claim that large-scale cultures can’t be altered. How do you therefore explain the second-wave feminism, leading to a female PM of the UK, the peace process in Northern Ireland, the rise of the Internet, and the massive change in normal attitudes to GBLT?

I am afraid that you have a lot of work to do before you can get me to agree with your initial statement.

“That very superiority may explain why so many children raised in large-scale, Western cultures belittle or even cause physical harm to one another and their own family, have a hard time learning to deal with different ideas and ways of living, and grow to insecure adulthood while continuing to refine these traits learned in childhood.”

For your statement to be true you’ll need to explain why the rates of inter-personal violence and murder are astronomically higher in hunter-gatherer societies compared to “large-scale, Western cultures”.

. . . that so many children raised in large-scale, Western cultures belittle or even cause physical harm to one another and their own family, have a hard time learning to deal with different ideas and ways of living, and grow to insecure adulthood while continuing to refine these traits learned in childhood.

I thought you were saying that the children of “large-scale, Western cultures” were much worse off than the children of hunter-gatherers. And became “insecure” adults because of the “traits learned in childhood”.

John Fembup, having read the thread I don’t think your point is at all clear. Are you saying, in response to the observation that the rates of murder and violence in these societies is much higher than in contemporary western society, that western children do or do not behave in a significantly violent way (physical and mental) towards all and sundry ? If so it does seem to be a deliberate refusal to accept that the opposite is true, for all their supposedly wonderful upbringing, the hunter gatherer society of adults is significantly more violent than ours.

I also wonder about the “minimal physical punishment” part, although it may be true for hunter gatherer societies. It seems to be certainly not true for more settled small scale societies despite the pieties of cultural relativist thought that would have it so. In such societies punishments can be severe.

In contrast to most, I didn’t think Diamond’s article was at all bad. It was genuinely thought provoking and more tentative in its conclusions than the comments so far give it credit for. Possibly I’ve been favourably influenced by reading one of his books (‘Guns, Germs and Steel’) and some of his articles. He does make it perfectly clear that the New Guineau tribes he knows best have an extremely violent society in which blood feuds are common. In fact, his work is the major route by which I came to know this fact. Without wishing to emulate their warlike nature, it is nonethless possible to find other aspects of their culture admirable – it has frequently been observed even among civilized peoples that the individuals produced by warrior societies or castes can have fine qualities alongside a touchy sense of honour.

Bloke in France, Diamond does discuss the custom of swaddling and cradle boards in page 2 of this very article. Perhaps you missed it 😉

The main problem with this piece is that New Guineans aren’t hunter gatherers. Yes, they do some hunting and gathering, but they are also subsistence farmers, this providing most of their food supply, and yes, as subsistence farmers they do agriculture and generally, except for trade purposes, are not nomadic as are many hunters and gatherers. So the article is complete tosh. Who wrote this stuff? Oh, Jared Diamond – nuff said.

Blame Jean Jaques Rousseau for this bit of wilfully blind beat western self up bit of romanticism. The kids have a great time in the village until they have to kill or be killed by the kids in the next village. Diamond feels a wave of universal brotherhood with the New Guineans that they certainly don’t feel for their neighbours.